My expectations were really low but I'm still disappointed, mostly because I have to keep playing on GG.

You are a shill for GG, or at least against Stars. As seen in 'all' your other posts. Stars doesnt have a PVI which you cannot check that demolishes your rakeback%. Nor does it have blatant superusers and botrings.

I used to be a dedicated Stars user for about 10 years myself, and I even stuck around when they had their 1%RB because games were soft enough at the time that I didn't really care.
+The competition at the time was pretty sh.t, with only Partypoker trying, but their LB challenge had it's own issues (account sharing people grinding 24/7 all week) and their client was also a gigantic mess.

What ultimately drove me away was:
-The client being a buggy mess that freezes frequently/doesn't load in my cards on multiple occasions, or just straight up server shutdowns. They forced their Aurora sh.t down everyone's throat instead of the old client, which was clean AF/used less resources and was reliable as well. Back when PS was The "Poker Giant" the one and only option, this site/client used to have 0 issues to host 100K+ people on average, with numbers reaching 150K-200K on peak days. Last year the site was unreliable AF with sub 50K averages.

-The RB challenge that people tend to praise so highly here --> I have received un-doable challenges for more than 12 months straight, despite actually not doing great at the time (massive -EV runs), requiring inhuman number of hands to be grinded over the stakes I was playing at the time. Even when they "lowered it one tier" it still would required me to grind like 60-70K hands a month.

-And lastly, the playing field just gradually got worse and smaller. I play PLO zoom almost exclusively since they introduced their sh.tty 4 table cap and their terrible new waiting list system.
The Pools between 50-200 were already bad at the start of last year, but it actually became a joke as the year progressed. PLO200 barely runs even now, but there were actually long periods where it simply ceased to exist. PLO100 having mostly the same regs battling it out in low EV games and eventually even PLO50 started to be a regfest for most of the day.

And there is a reason why these pools got so much worse as the time progressed, people were simply ditching the site, rightfully so.

Pokerstars isn't renewing their RB system because "they are listening to player feedback regarding satisfaction" or whatever BS PR stuff they are using. They are changing it, because the site is failing, not having enough regs to sustain their pools and this also makes the site less attractive for recreational players when they see that the playerpool is small AF, and consist of the same regulars every single day.

___
I said it in a previous post as well, GG poker has it's own issues. Their RB system might not be that transparent either. But the playing pool feel much better, (more recs and even the avg. reg plays worse/more exploitable) and their RB with the Leaderboard money and the occasional GGcare money is more than generous.

Pokerstars IMO is beyond "redemption" at this point. They had an insanely favourable position initially with their monopoly in the market, and all they did with it was just exploiting it as much as they could, f.cking regs and even recreational players along the way. FFS they offered 1% RB at a point and even then we didn't really have great options, because competition was a joke with sh.tty software that was ugly AF, full of bugs.

Well those days are over, the competition is here (not just GG), and Pokerstars is a bit too late to realize how much they ****ed up. This "new" RB system is basically them putting out fires, but sadly there isn't much to save anymore.

at first it sounded nice, then i looked more at the details and its actually a downgrade.

right now im earning 18.5% from gold chests + 40% WC. sure, i don't complete the WC often, but maybe 1 out of 2 i do complete. so lets say i earn 30% RB overall.
so with the new system my current level Gold will be auto downgraded to bronze which is 17.5% with no WC.

i play $2 spin and gos, at this limit its impossible to reach 40% (Black chest). to get 30% i'll need to play a min of 7500 $2 spin and gos a month (250/day, 10hrs 3tabling LOL). im averaging maybe 1000-2000/mo right now which will take me to only silver level (20% RB).

how does this make me better off as they claim?

meanwhile GG is rolling out their 50% RB "killer whale" promotion for everyone LOL.

Stars and their stinking 20% RB. im leaving stars for GG

You will be downgraded to silver not bronze.

I don't trust the data they are providing for the reasoning the slightest, and I don't see how you can sell this as beneficial to recreational players. In 2023 I played 150k hands of z10/z25 and lost money so I'm closer to a rec than a reg both in volume and results, yet was receiving 17.5% from silver chests or at times were I played more 18.5% from gold chests, plus the odd weekly challenge completed at 40%. Completing 1 weekly challenge entailed 5-6k hands of z10 or even less if mixing some z25, perhaps 3k, both somewhat reasonable even if playing sporadically, and would get a 40% on top, combined with other leaderboards & cardex promos I think most people would be getting 60% consistently in micros, even if you failed some challenges and lost the accrued RB%, if you just completed one that you started sporadically you would easily be looking at 50% RB runrate average

With the changes I'm looking at 20% RB at best, perhaps 25% if I played consistently for a period of time to unlock the gold chests, massive downgrade. If anything I can only see benefitting recs playing very low volume like less than 1k hands a week

as rightfully mentioned above,micro/mid stake regs will get ~3x low rb(from 65% to 20-25%).I play 1$ flashes,so to get "Pokerstars Select" with 40% rb level i need to play 50k tourneys per month for whole year=unreal.Even 4x less distance is extremely hard(10 hours of pure game per day on 5 tables with no weekends)

again, for most winners that 50% is only 12.5% after PVI

No point trying to grind yourself to the select but I believe you already know this. You will get destroyed by rake and variance. Small stakes flash grinders are so focked atm. Majority of them if not all had the 40% challenges and were probably the only pool clearing them.

Yeah but with everything combined for like a spins player gg is way better option atm. Maybe even for cash player if you can hit the lbs.

Players on Black Chest will now be migrated to Black level.

You need to earn 5 Diamond chests to upgrade to Black so this is $6,000 in rake but the period earning the first chest is not considered when the number of days are counted. This is because it is technically counting progress bars completed in 28 days. So it can be true to say you need to earn 5 chests within 28 days to upgrade whilst it not being true that you need to rake $6k in 28 days.

Here's an example to try to explain, in which a player has earned 5 x diamond chests so raked $6k and managed to upgrade but in this example they have taken 42 days to do so but would upgrade after earning the fifth chest on 4th March because at this point the statement "have 5 chests been earned in the last 28 days" is true, the player earned a chest on 5th Feb, 12th Feb, 15th Feb, 19th Feb and 4th March so 5 chests all within 28 days. The fact that the first of these chests started to be earned 42 days ago does not matter. So technically you need to earn 5 chests to upgrade but the rake amount required to be earned within 28 day period is equal to 4 x chests = $4.8k

What he said. I hate GG but Stars is worse.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/m...osted&t=119016

Ironic being called a shill by that guy, zero self-awareness.

Indeed, between promos like ggcare, the leader boards and the bad beat jackpots (or the gold mine promo for spins), one probably doesn't need as much rb from their fish buffet. GG care offers way more rb that way, and it's not even close.

What time do the festivities start tomorrow? Midnight?

Do anyone knows if starcoins will be converted into cash?

Yes on Feb 7th I think it was. So may as well do it yourself in the store.

Ah okay, thanks for the info!

14:10 UK time now. Nothing happens.

Not happy about PS's communication with players about the changes. We don't even know the new RB levels and how many points are needed to get there.

There is a slight delay for testing. Closer to 4pm UK now.

Wait so we aren't currently earning points towards the new rb system!?

Afraid not - you can still see old chest which will need completing or exchanging anyway

Yeh bit weird they haven't released publicly but here are the details for you

Blue > 2000 points > $3
Bronze > 6000 points > $10.50
Silver > 20,000 points > $40
Gold > 50,000 points > $125
Diamond > 120,000 > $360
Black > 250,000 > $1,000

5 chests needed per level to move up

Unreal!

Can someone please Eli5 as to why this new system is bad? I'm a rakeback noob

How can they advertise 40% rb and then give less than 40%?